


House Vampire AU

by wheel_pen



Series: Miscellaneous House MD Stories [1]
Category: House M.D.
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-22
Updated: 2015-02-22
Packaged: 2018-03-14 12:02:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3409850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wheel_pen/pseuds/wheel_pen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A couple short scenes from an alternate universe in which House and Wilson are vampires.</p>
            </blockquote>





	House Vampire AU

**Author's Note:**

> The bad words are censored; that’s just how I do things. I hope you enjoy this AU. I own nothing and appreciate being able to play in this universe.

_England, 1910’s_

 

            When House finally opened his eyes into the darkness he felt, to put it mildly, very strange.

 

            His senses, always sharper than average, now seemed ten times enhanced, to the point that he was at first overwhelmed by the ticking of the wall clock, the scent of the horsehair couch, the taste of… a curious metallic taste in his mouth… Blood? The thought alarmed him sufficiently to reach a hand up to his face, checking himself for injuries he was otherwise numb to. There was a patch of something sticky and half-dried on his neck, again presumably blood, but he found no corresponding wound.

 

            Willing himself to sit up, House braced for the familiar pain about to shoot through his right thigh, automatically thinking of the bottle of morphine and syringe tucked into his nightstand drawer. It would be a slow, painful trudge to the bedroom, he knew—why had he allowed himself to fall asleep on the couch in the sitting room? But as he sat up and prepared himself, the pain—didn’t come. This realization alarmed him more than the blood in his mouth. He had lived with this pain for years. Nothing he had ever found, even the morphine, could eliminate it so completely. But yet it wasn’t there.

 

            House wiggled the toes on his right foot, flexed the ankle, unbent his knee until it bumped into the low table before the couch—no pain. He did the same with his left leg just for good measure. He even poked at his right thigh where the misshapen flesh should be, gingerly at first but then with increasing pressure as he felt no pain, and no scar tissue either, just… an ordinary leg. He stood then, quickly, feeling reckless and slightly angry, as if someone were playing a trick on him somehow. He _felt_ awake, he felt hungry, starving really, although the thought of the cold beef stew his housekeeper had left in the icebox the night before turned his stomach. Surely you couldn’t be hungry in your sleep. Although he didn’t quite feel normal, aside from the leg—the sounds and smells were keener than ever, and he felt he could see perfectly well around the room, though no lamps were lit and the sun had long since set outside. Maybe he _was_ dreaming after all.

 

            Another sound, soft even to his newly augmented hearing, caught his attention and he turned, wincing automatically before he realized there was nothing to wince at. If this was indeed a dream, he hoped it would be a long one. There was someone in the corner of the room, he saw, curled up on the floor, emitting the half-smothered sobs that House had heard. “Who is that?” House asked cautiously, somewhat peeved at a stranger in his house, even in a dream, but then the person shifted a bit and became more familiar. “Wilson? What’s going on?”

 

            House thought he heard his friend mumble something around the tears and began to feel honestly worried now. Wilson’s heart was disturbingly soft, of course, but despite his sentimentality he wasn’t prone to actually _crying_. House tried to think what case Wilson had been working on last—the bald madman, the one who hardly responded to drugs at all and raved about being a creature of the night—Memories came back fragmented, unclear. The man had broken out of the hospital. Wilson had been injured—House remembered the blood now, around Wilson’s pale neck and face where he lay in a corner of the cell, where House had found him—but he couldn’t remember how they had returned to House’s apartment, or why. Surely Wilson should be at the hospital, as a patient, at least overnight?

 

            House glanced around for his ever-present cane, then realized that if he wasn’t in pain he probably didn’t need it. He took his first step tentatively, amazed that he’d stayed on his feet, then grew more confident and rounded the end of the couch, heading towards his friend. “Wilson?” he repeated, approaching the younger man. House wished Nurse Allison were around, he was certainly no good at this comforting business and more likely to tell his friend to suck it up and get over it. It wasn’t the first time either of them had been assaulted by one of the asylum patients after all.

 

            “What?” House prompted when he heard Wilson mumble something again. He dropped to his knees beside his friend, half-tempted to stand up and do it again, just because he could, without pain. It wasn’t like Wilson would notice anyway, with his face buried in his arms. “Um, Jimmy—“ House tried again, hesitantly reaching out and touching his friend’s shoulder.

 

            Wilson looked up then, and his face was streaked with blood. House went into doctor mode instantly, tilting his friend’s face up to the moonlight streaming in the window, looking for signs of injury. “Jimmy, what happened?” he asked clinically, shaking the younger man a bit when he didn’t get an answer right away.

 

            “I’m sorry,” Wilson choked out, wiping his face on his sleeve and smearing the blood. “I’m sorry. I had to do it. I couldn’t help it.”

 

            “Jimmy, what are you talking about?” House demanded. More tears squeezed out of Wilson’s eyes and rolled down his cheeks—tears of blood. House’s mind raced—there were some rare conditions being cited in the literature these days, especially from the Continent, with tears of blood as a symptom—there was a doctor in Romania who was doing some notable work on—And then House found himself staring at the blood, smelling it, wondering how it would taste, wanting to taste it, compelled to taste it, and he looked at his hand with Wilson’s blood on it as if he had never seen it before, and brought it slowly towards his mouth.

 

            Wilson grabbed it in a surprisingly strong grip. “I’m sorry,” he repeated earnestly. “I’m so sorry I did it, Greg.”

 

            “Jimmy, what are you talking about?” House asked yet again, irritation beginning to grow. “What did you do?”

 

            “How do you feel?” Wilson countered, clearly dreading the answer.

 

            “Aside from annoyance at _someone_ who’s crying blood all over my carpet, pretty d—n good,” House told him, starting to stand. There was no pain, no stiffness in his leg. “Come on, get up, don’t sit there blubbering like one of our patients,” he added, reaching down to help haul Wilson to his feet. Either House had gotten stronger as well or Wilson had dropped a hundred pounds, because he jerked up like House had pulled on a rag doll. “Now come on, what’s this all about?”

 

            Wilson merely blinked at him, eyes mournful and hooded. An idea began to form in House’s mind. “You _did_ something to me, didn’t you?” he guessed, and was rewarded by Wilson dropping his head in shame. “You _gave_ me something,” House continued, triumphant. “Probably something illegal and highly dangerous, from your attitude.” Suddenly everything was beginning to make sense—he was on some new kind of high that made him feel this good, this free of pain, this attuned to the world around him. “Well you can stop your moping,” he insisted. “Whatever you gave me worked. Look.” House didn’t _quite_ dance around the room—he had his pride, after all—but he moved with an energy he hadn’t felt for years, coming back before Wilson with a flourish. “It _worked_. So why are you acting like somebody died?”

 

_Present day_

 

            Wilson unlocked the front door quietly and glanced around the dim, tiled entryway before stepping back and indicating Grace should go ahead, offering her what he hoped was an encouraging smile. He’d seen her staring at the ornate, ostentatious stained glass pattern on the door and hoped it didn’t disturb her too much; the whole house was like that. It was of course why they’d bought it.

 

            She stood just a few feet inside the doorway, unwilling to go any further, possibly because of the dark but more likely because of who she might find in the next room. Or what. Wilson set her duffle bag down on the floor and rubbed her arms through her thin sweatshirt, smiling down at her. Grace shivered a little.

 

            “It’s cold in here,” she commented, her voice a bit quivery.

 

            “Yeah, I guess it is, I’m sorry,” he replied, mentally kicking himself for forgetting about that. “We don’t, um—the cold doesn’t really bother us, so...” She kind of raised her eyebrows, gave a little shrug, like she should have expected that herself. Which of course she couldn’t have. “They’ve got a fire going in the next room, I’m sure, and I’ll turn up the heat in your bedroom.”

 

            “It’s okay,” she assured him, which he knew did _not_ mean he shouldn’t turn the heat up—it just meant he shouldn’t worry about it so much. But he _would_ worry, because she really shouldn’t be standing here in the cold, not after a long day at the hospital, not after long weeks of dealing with his... quirks. Wilson shrugged off his jacket—worn only for appearance, of course—and wrapped it around her shoulders. She protested nominally, he insisted nominally, and in the end she was warmer and he was no worse off.

 

            “Okay,” he began, taking a breath, “you wait here for a minute, and I’ll just go... let them know we’ve arrived, okay?”

 

            “Okay.” Grace nodded, her sunken cheekbones even more shadowed in the odd slashes of light from the streetlamp outside. He had seen pictures of her when they were fuller, golden, pictures from _before_ , and he wondered which of his multiple neuroses were responsible for him finding her more attractive _now_.

 

            Wilson pulled her into a quick, gentle hug, then left her standing in the entryway, staring around at the intricate carvings disappearing into the shadows above her head, while he pushed through the swinging doors into the next room and followed the faint sound of music and conversation down the hall.

 

            Stephen called this “the sitting room,” and in his usual obnoxious manner, House had insisted upon shoving just about every overstuffed chair and couch in the house into it, until it was ridiculously full of, well, things to sit on. Sometimes House would spend two or three hours just moving from surface to surface, “trying out” each different piece of furniture, the way he said one _ought_ to do in a “sitting room.” It was times like these that made Wilson regret the whole idea of immortality.

 

            “Um, hi, guys,” Wilson began hesitantly, glancing behind him to make sure Grace hadn’t followed. Stephen put a finger in the book he was reading, laid the volume on his lap, and gave James what appeared to be his undivided attention; Stephen was good about that kind of thing, sensing when someone had something important to say. House appeared to be, well, _wrestling_ with Melinda on a high-backed, leopard-spotted couch off to one side, while she tried to keep him at bay and read her own book; he didn’t pause until Stephen, presumably, had shot him a particularly stern mental poke.

 

            “ _What_?” he asked in irritation, barely straightening.

 

            “Okay, so Grace is here,” Wilson announced quietly, with some amount of urgency; he didn’t want to leave her in the cold for too long. “And I need—“

 

            “Grace?” House interrupted rudely. “Darling, you know if you _name_ it, you won’t want to _eat_ it.”

 

            Wilson pursed his lips and narrowed his eyes at the older man, who caught Melinda’s defensively-flung ankle without blinking. “I _need_ ,” he continued peevishly, “for you to _not_ make remarks like _that_ around her. Or she’s going to be even more freaked out than she already is.”

 

            “Um, not to be rude, Wilson,” Melinda commented, still struggling a little with House, “but _why_ did you think it would be a good idea to bring her here, again?”

 

            “Well, I just—“ This was going to sound stupid. “I just wanted her to meet my friends, is all.” The room erupted in sarcastic _awwwww_ s, at least from House and Melinda, although Wilson felt that Stephen’s paternal look turned a bit smirkish for a moment. He rolled his eyes, unperturbed. “And I need for you guys to just act—normal.”

 

            He might as well have opened a curtain at sunrise, for all the flurry that remark caused. “Really, James, I do resent that—“

 

            “I _am_ normal—“

 

            “Certainly.”

 

            Seeing House’s evil grin as he put his opinion in, James clarified, “Not normal for _you_ , normal for... normal people.”

 

            “Like... terminal cancer patients?” Melinda questioned.

 

            “Or pseudo-Goth teenagers?” House offered.

 

            “I am _not_ Goth in any form,” the teenager protested, “except perhaps in your sick little fantasies...”

 

            Bringing up House’s sick little fantasies threatened to derail the conversation even more, so Wilson sighed loudly and asked of Stephen, “Where’s Sasha?”

 

            The patriarch tutted him lightly. “It’s _Alex_ now, dear boy. He’s trying to _blend_.”

 

            “Right.” James rubbed the back of his neck in frustration, knowing that if he himself were ‘normal,’ he’d have a splitting headache right about now. “So, um, do you know where he is? I really don’t want him bursting in on Grace and scaring her half to death.”

 

            “Or perhaps mistaking her for an hors d’oevre,” House put in snidely.

 

            “I wouldn’t try snacking on her,” Wilson shot back with a bit of exasperated menace. “She’s got enough drugs in her bloodstream, you’d go through the roof. Stop thinking about it,” he added, when he saw the interested glint in House’s eyes.

 

            “I’m afraid darling _Alex_ and the boy have gone out for the evening,” Stephen added, reclaiming Wilson’s attention. “I daresay they’ll be back in a few hours. Don’t worry about your little pet, though, dearest, I’ll make sure he understands who she belongs to.”

 

            James wasn’t entirely comfortable with Stephen’s choice of words, but he trusted Sash—er, _Alex_ would get the meaning. Although that did bring up another point. “Also, could you guys try to be a little less...” He groped for the appropriate term, couldn’t find it, and resorted to hand gestures and a descriptive facial expression.

 

            Stephen quirked an eyebrow in bemusement. House frowned, eyes narrowing as he tried to divine his friend’s meaning. Wilson was about to give up entirely when Melinda smirked and suggested, “I think the word you’re looking for is... _flaming_.”

 

            “ _What_?” demanded House, glaring at her.

 

            “Flamboyant. Florid. _Fruity_ ,” Melinda continued, pronouncing the words ripely as Wilson sighed. “Mincing. Campy. Dramatic. Fey. Foppish. Dandyish. In a word?” She drew the syllables out mockingly. “ _Ho-mo-sex-ual_.”

 

            “Yes, thank you, Melinda,” Wilson told her resignedly. “Glad to know those vocabulary classes are paying off.”

 

            House was scoffing at him. “Wilson, _darling_ , I am _outraged_ by this suggestion of yours,” he responded, leaning back on the couch and spreading out, shirt partially unbuttoned, like a well-dressed but scruffy reveler at a bacchanal. Wilson felt his gaze drawn inexorably to where the closely-tailored silk trousers tightened over his thighs. “I mean, the very _thought_ of anyone in _this_ household engaging in any sort of...” He flicked another button open on his shirt and flung an arm over the back of the couch, straining the fine fabric even more. Wilson licked his lips unconsciously. So did Stephen. So did Melinda, for that matter. “... _homosexual_ behavior is just... offensive in the _extreme_.”

 

            There was a smug pause as Wilson tried to remember what they’d been talking about. Then Melinda shoved House out of his debauched playboy pose. “Please. Just ‘cause everyone in the room’s had sex with you, doesn’t make you all _that_ ,” she assured him disdainfully.

 

            “Well put, my little thesaurus,” he told her, dragging the teenager onto his lap with a minimum of protest, “but entirely fallacious. I am _extremely_ ‘all that.’”

 

            Grateful for the moment of distraction, Wilson tried to fight the blush in his cheeks while Stephen coughed discreetly and adjusted the book in his lap. “James, my dear,” the older man began, leaving the less emotionally mature members of the group to fight between themselves, “I must admit I find it disturbing that you think your... guest would object to this behavior.”

 

            Great, now he had them thinking Grace was a homophobe or something. “No, no, it’s not the being homosexual, or bisexual, or”—he glared pointedly at House—“anything-bigger-than-a-loaf-of-bread-sexual, it’s just the... mannerisms. Are kind of weird. For people who aren’t used to them,” he finished, feeling incredibly lame.

 

            Stephen looked as if he didn’t quite get it, but would at least attempt something on Wilson’s behalf. “Well, we shall try to be as... um... _prosaic_ as possible, if you wish,” he finally conceded. That wasn’t exactly what Wilson had meant, of course, but at least Stephen was taking him seriously.

 

            “Okay. Thank you. Geez, I better go get her, she’ll freeze out there,” Wilson fretted, glancing at his watch to see how long he’d spent at his near-fruitless task.


End file.
